Im Bored .........

Boredom, what is it?

By Tina Taylor

Boredom is an emotional state experienced when an individual is left without anything in particular to do, and not interested in their surroundings. The first recorded use of the word boredom is in the novel Bleak House by Charles Dickens, written in 1852, although the expression to be a bore had been used in the sense of "to be tiresome or dull" since 1768.

Most parents will have heard the term “I’m bored” from their children.  Its half term at the moment and I’ve my grandsons over for a few days, despite a park just down the street, a mountain of Lego, marble runs, games, paper, pens/pencils, Cable TV, DVDs, Ipads/tablets, computers, Wii’s and Playstations plus games apparently there is nothing to do.

And today this seems to be even more prevalent, with a culture of instant gratification boredom is said to be the cause of prison riots; aren’t people supposed to be bored in prison.  Isn’t prison like some huge time out?  Boredom is said to cause problems from gambling to nuisance caused by school children.

Just recently in the US boredom was the excuse given by someone sending abusive threatening messages in tweets.  She threatened a total stranger in the middle of the night with “something worse than rape”.  Her reason she was bored and got drunk. 

With the social media we now have “instant access” to people we’ve not been able to contact before.  So now we are seeing people convicted of social bullying and sending abusive messages.   John Nimmo was convicted of sending abusive messages to the Labour MP Stella Creasy (now I know that some of you will think whats wrong with that) ……. His reason he was bored.  In court he was described as a recluse with nothing to do all day.

Does that mean that all this cyber bullying is nothing more than bored people?

In 1964 Isaac Asimov predicted that boredom would become the great disease of our time leading to serious mental, emotional and sociological consequences, so is he right?

Some say boredom is good for kids it teaches them to make their own entertainment ……   As a child I was told only boring people are bored………..

It’s responsible for anti social behaviour, binge eating, getting hammered, picking fights, taking risks, having affairs, shopping ……

But what is it?

Boredom isn't just having nothing to do but being deeply dissatisfied with what there is to do, with your own company and with yourself. To be properly bored you need to think you deserve to be happier than this, at least as happy as all those other people seem to be.

Research has concluded that tedium, being bored makes people more hostile to others.  When life seems meaningless we may subconsciously pick on certain people, people we perceive to be different from us just to try to liven things up a bit.

Maybe mum was half right: bored people are boring. Right up until the moment they turn nasty.

Of course whilst some people feel bored others seem to deal with tedium much easier. 

Isn’t boredom just a frame of mind?

And with the advent of instant Internet access on our phones, tablets and Ipads people seem to be spending much more time on line.  You see people on line in cars, trains, and planes, whilst sitting alone in restaurants, pubs etc and what amazes me whilst with people.  You see people sitting at a table opposite each other each looking at their phone.

Has all this technology lowered our boredom threshold?

How can we stop feeling bored?

I used to label paperwork as boring, tedious and laborious.  Years ago when I first learned NLP I used a swish pattern and it changed the way that I think about it.

Swish pattern ………

1. Think of something you want to change, see this in your mind - big and bold and clear.  now set it aside for a moment.
2. And see a picture of how you want to be in that situation.  Make this image totally compelling with a compelling voice that is telling you how much you want to do this.  Put this picture in the corner of the image you want to change.
3. Count from 1 – 3 and at 3 you will make the image you want to change white out – disappear.  Just white it out so its blank and simultaneiously the compelling image becomes big and bright and bold and replaces the other picture.  Repeat this very quickly 5 times - remember to open your eyes for a second after each time.
4. 1 2 3 WOOSSSSH
5. Now again
6. and again
7. and again
8. and again 

What is Fear

There’s a lot of talk about States within NLP; looking at the desired state - what it is that you want and the present state – where you are at the moment.

Most clients want to overcome anxiety or fear; some with phobias of something specific whilst some don’t even know what they are afraid of, just feel anxious. 

Fear is part of our survival instinct; it sets our body and mind in motion in preparation for a perceived threat.  It’s hard wired into the sub conscious and is one of our oldest emotions; sometimes generated without any conscious awareness.  We feel uneasy, yet don't know why.  It makes us jump when something moves on the ground or touches us, makes us blink when something is coming towards our eyes.  We respond due to sensory input driving us into action.

Fear makes you focus.  There’s a moment of awareness, with our unconscious telling us something isn't right, and as we sense "something" we freeze.  This freezing may stop predators from seeing us it also gives us a chance to evaluate the situation and if it is OK we continue - returning to what we were doing.

Fear is all about chemicals, epinephrine and nor epinephrine; epinephrine (adrenaline) is secreted by the adrenal glands.  These chemicals are released in moments of fear to prepare us for the fight or flight response; and changes occur to improve chances of survival.  As well as increased strength an increase in oxygen increases sensory acuity whilst non-survival process like digestion are put on hold.

Fears and phobias are extreme anxieties.  As we go through life we learn a great many things by experience, things we are not even aware of.  An unconscious learning, fear is one of these experiences and is a demonstration of how quickly we learn an automatic response.

From one experience the mind can generalize and attach fear.  Then the flight or fight response kicks in.  Your imagination is far more powerful than conscious will and the area of the brain that you use to imagine something is the same area that is used when experiencing things.  Which is why your nervous system can’t tell the difference between a real or vividly imagined experience.

For an event to be coded as traumatic its said that four conditions need to be met.  First it needs to be a emotional event; second, have a meaning for the individual; third, the chemicals need to be in place and fourth the experience is perceived as inescapable.  If these are present it is possible that the brain will categorize the event as traumatic.

And yet there could be 2 people at the same event and one will be traumatized whilst the other will not.  How can this happen?

Life is full of traumatic moments, in order for an event to be traumatizing it must produce an emotional response.  Meaning is attached to the event, and whereby one person may code something as traumatic another may not.  A good example of this is those who are afraid of riding on roller coasters, they produce the four conditions in their mind and they know its scary and dangerous; whereas someone who loves roller coasters will have all the same conditions in place yet they love the thrill of the ride.

Our feelings are created by the way in which we think of something; for example someone scared of spiders may be creating an image in their mind of a larger than life spider which is scaring them.  Our fears may have begun due to specific event in our lives but these tend to evolve to a point whereby it’s the thought of the event/situation that causes the feeling rather than the situation/event itself.

There are a number of ways in which you can change the way you feel - one of these is; as you notice a feeling of anxiety/panic begin

1.    Breath in gently and slowly through your mouth when your lungs are full hold your breath for 10 seconds then

2.    Breath out slowly through your nose

3.    Breath in slowly through your mouth and hold your breath for 5 seconds

4.    Breath out slowly through your nose

5.    continue breathing this way for a couple of minutes at which point the anxiety will have subsided.

www.tina-taylor.com

All the time in the world

Something that has fascinated me is that when I have very little to do I never seem to get much done.  Those things I don't have time to do still don't get done.  Yet when Im really busy I can do so much.  Everything gets done and more and when I think of those things that never seem to get done I realise they're not so important anyways.

Time doesn't really exist, its a man made concept that enables us to keep track of things.  

So as time doesn’t really exist you can’t “run out” of time.  So all those thing you’ve been telling yourself you don’t have time to do………….

Think about the future, run through the things you want to do; run a few “What If” movies see yourself achieving these.  From here consider do you still want to?  Is it good for you to do?  Write your goals on paper. 

See yourself doing the activities that will create the success, then associate into the doing, see what you will see, hear what you will hear, feel what you will feel, then disassociate again, and see your yourself doing the activities that will lead to success.

Remember that success is behaviour driven.  What behaviour do you want to do more often, and more consistently, to ensure greater success.  Now just do it!

www.tina-taylor.com

New year, new you

In 2014 we begin the year with a new moon, new moons historically are an energetically dynamic time to set intention for the coming month and or year.  Our ancestors would take this time to set resolutions. 

Nowadays the tradition most people are aware of is that of setting new years resolutions we do this for January 1^st the beginning of a new year.   

Our ancestors set their resolutions at the Winter Solstice, the shortest day 21 December, the time when the new Sun is born and they looked forward to a brighter warmer future as the days got longer and warmer.

I’ve been thinking about the so called spirit of Christmas, nowadays this seems to be all about spending money, sending cards, eating and drinking too much.  Christmas seems to be all about over indulging. 

Although maybe one benefit of the materialistic gift giving Christmastime is that we begin to think about what we want. 

Maybe one of the benefits of all of the material gift-giving that Christmastime brings is that we turn our attention to the question of what do we want.  It's crucial to be self aware, to know what you want, to truly think about it and consider new possibilities. I've learned over the years that this isn't by default a selfish or greedy state of being but a skill that we all need to have. It's an exercise I do every now and again, to just check in with my true self and see if I have what I need, if I'm moving toward getting the things I need in my life.

For example, lately I've been very attracted to all the lovely bath bombs, bubble bars and wonderful lotions and potions.  I believe this desire for more lovely smelly bath things is really a manifestation of my desire to make time to take more baths.  I love baths in enables my to indulge, relax and clear my mind. 

Similarly, perhaps a desire for sparkly jewelry is simply an example of a desire to add a bit of sparkle and pizzazz to life overall. 

The lesson is that what we want, even small material gifts, can often point towards what our souls are truly longing for - and all we have to do is listen.

In winter, in the Dark Time I am reminded that I am walking through the world alone, as a single entity.  That I am, you are, and each of us is a whole person, a single being, whether we are in a partnership or not.  And that if I am in a partnership, I have chosen to be. Happy with it or not, it's a choice that I have made, and one that I have the control to unmake.  Am I happy?  What do I want?  Am I heading in that direction or did I somehow get off my path?  These are the questions that come up in the darkness, when we feel alone.

This new moon falling on New Years Day has extra potential as this is the time when many do set resolutions for the new year.  What will your resolutions be for 2014?

What do you want to change in your life.  Some I’m sure will be looking to stop smoking, drinking, sort out their finances, gain more confidence whatever your resolution is get I touch to find out how I can help you achieve your goals for 2014.

www.tina-taylor.com

How to Let go of Fear

Fear is part of our survival instinct; it sets our body and mind in motion in preparation for a perceived threat.  It’s hard wired into the sub conscious and is one of our oldest emotions; sometimes generated without any conscious awareness.  We feel uneasy, yet don't know why.  It makes us jump when something moves on the ground or touches us, makes us blink when something is coming towards our eyes.  We respond due to sensory input driving us into action.

Fear makes you focus.  There’s a moment of awareness, with our unconscious telling us something isn't right, and as we sense "something" we freeze.  This freezing may stop predators from seeing us it also gives us a chance to evaluate the situation and if it is OK we continue - returning to what we were doing.

Fear is all about chemicals, epinephrine and norepinephrine; epinephrine (adrenaline) is secreted by the adrenal glands.  These chemicals are released in moments of fear to prepare us for the fight or flight response; and changes occur to improve chances of survival.  As well as increased strength an increase in oxygen increases sensory acuity whilst non-survival process like digestion are put on hold.

Fears and phobias are extreme anxieties.  As we go through life we learn a great many things by experience, things we are not even aware of.  An unconscious learning, fear is one of these experiences and is a demonstration of how quickly we learn an automatic response.

From one experience the mind can generalize and attach fear.  Then the flight or fight response kicks in.  Your imagination is far more powerful than conscious will and the area of the brain that you use to imagine something is the same area that is used when experiencing things.  Which is why your nervous system can’t tell the difference between a real or vividly imagined experience.

For an event to be coded as traumatic its said that four conditions need to be met.  First it needs to be a emotional event; second, have a meaning for the individual; third, the chemicals need to be in place and fourth the experience is perceived as inescapable.  If these are present it is possible that the brain will categorize the event as traumatic.

And yet there could be 2 people at the same event and one will be traumatized whilst the other will not.  How can this happen?

Life is full of traumatic moments, in order for an event to be traumatizing it must produce an emotional response.  Meaning is attached to the event, and whereby one person may code something as traumatic another may not.  A good example of this is those who are afraid of riding on roller coasters, they produce the four conditions in their mind and they know its scary and dangerous; whereas someone who loves roller coasters will have all the same conditions in place yet they love the thrill of the ride.

Our feelings are created by the way in which we think of something; for example someone scared of spiders may be creating an image in their mind of a larger than life spider which is scaring them.  Our fears may have begun due to specific event in our lives but these tend to evolve to a point whereby it’s the thought of the event/situation that causes the feeling rather than the situation/event itself.

There are a number of ways in which you can change the you feel one of these is; as you notice a feeling of anxiety/panic begin

1.       Breath in gently and slowly through your mouth when your lungs are full hold your breath for 10 seconds then

2.       Breath out slowly through your nose

3.      Breath in slowly through your mouth and hold your breath for 5 seconds

4.      Breath out slowly through your nose

5.      Continue breathing this way for a couple of minutes at which point the anxiety will have subsided.

Tina Taylor’s new CD How to Let go of Fear can teach you ways in which you can change your response’s and take back control of your thought processes.

www.tina-taylor.com

Hypnosis for Pain Control

For centuries hypnosis has been viewed as a magical cure-all, and has had a history of acceptance and rejection by the medical profession for over 200 years.  Countless numbers of people have used hypnosis with great success; and it has been put under the microscope and reviewed many times over.

Just a few years ago it was said that hypnosis was bad and didn’t exist!  Whilst at the same time Dr’s of Psychology were achieving amazing results utilizing hypnosis techniques.

Going back just a couple of hundred years we have documented evidence from Friederich Anton Mesmer; who in the 18^th Century, believed Mesmerism would hinder the development of disease and had success in curing various illnesses as well as helping people with pain control. 

Then in 1834 an English surgeon John Elliotson used hypnosis for pain control and reported back to the British Medical Association at that time on his success in the numerous operations he performed.  He said that these were done painlessly using mesmerism.

And in England around 1846, another surgeon James Braid revisited the phenomenon of Mesmerism and renamed it hypnosis, after the Greek god of sleep, Hypnos.  He was the first person to attribute the phenomenon to psychological rather than physical variables and his findings brought a renewed interest in the subject.  He documented over 345 major operations performed successfully and painlessly using hypnosis as the sole anesthetic. 

Yet more research was completed in 1990, from the various trails undertaken The American Psychology Association came to the conclusion that hypnosis had a similar effect as the placebo effect; that the subjects beliefs that the hypnotic suggestions can reduce pain had the effect of reducing pain.

Here in the UK, as in other countries across the globe, operations have been completed in modern hospitals using hypnosis for pain control.  In July 2008 it was reported in the Daily Telegraph that “Bernadine Coady aged 67 was wide awake for a one-hour operation, which is usually performed under a general anaesthetic.  Mrs Coady hypnotised herself before the "keyhole" surgery, an arthroscopy, in which a surgeon drills into a patients knee and inserts a camera to look for possible causes of pain.  She went home the same day "looking very happy", according to a spokesman for the private Orthopaedics and Spine Specialist Hospital, in Peterborough, Cambridgeshire”.

The management of pain using hypnosis is in a strange position. Although hypnosis has been shown to be effective in many cases, it still tends to be overlooked.  Regardless of the various conclusions made over time, hypnosis has been shown to be a useful tool for pain management in many situations with some articles suggesting that hypnosis is one of the great misunderstood treatments of our time. It has been shown to be an effective, safe, and inexpensive way in which patients can deal with pain; and is the perfect pain control for many procedures ranging from kidney stone fragmentation to minor surgery to childbirth it has proved an effective alternative to conventional sedatives and analgesics.

I have been teaching women how to use hypnosis for painless childbirth now for over a decade; my strategy for this has been well documented in my book Painless Childbirth.  These strategies used to help women have their babies more comfortably can be learnt and used to control pain in any situation.

On 17 & 18 November I will be teaching my strategies for Pain Control for The UK Company check out  https://theukcompany.infusionsoft.com/go/PCBB/t317t/ for details.

www.tina-taylor.com

FERTILITY ISSUES


Today fertility is a huge issue; women come to a stage in their lives where they decide its time to have a child; then find out that the one thing that for so many years they tried to prevent is much more difficult than anticipated. Women from all walks of life from the rich and famous to those who have sacrificed a lot to pay for treatment.

In the pursuit of a baby, some women spend their time living with anxiety, creating so much stress as they wait each month to see if its happened yet. Whilst waiting some turn to alcohol. Many not realising that alcohol can actually lower fertility levels as it’s a hormone disruptor.

Others create a strict regime of diet, exercise, no alcohol and lots of supplements. Creating a different kind of stress, as they regiment their lives. Insisting on having sex on baby days, on the days they are ovulating, some even forgetting about their loved ones. Lost in project baby, peeing on sticks and insisting husbands and partners come home as its time.

You may be consciously saying yes to having a baby and yet fail to get pregnant, this may be due to your mind saying no deep down. Emotions can affect the delicately balanced hormonal system, which in turn controls ovulation, spermatogenesis and pregnancy.

To develop the perspective needed to conceive you need to view yourself as a fertile person. Many have been conditioned to looking outside ourselves for healing rather than how we can help ourselves. Drugs and surgery may be necessary but an over reliance on them has led us to stop trusting the wisdom of our bodies, our instincts. Using all the resources available to you to achieve you goal.

Instead of only having sex on baby days, have sex throughout the month. Regular sex is thought to create fresher sperm with fewer abnormalities. I think that ovulation sticks are a mixed blessing; I’ve seen people’s sex lives radically change as they only have sex a couple of days a month. So forget about peeing on sticks and make love whenever and as often as you desire to.

Positivity makes all the difference, we’re just beginning to understand the power of the mind. The work Bruce Lipton is doing working with how our beliefs can change our DNA will I am sure become more readily known and used in the future. Use positive visualisation, stop worrying about becoming pregnant and focus; visualise your eggs being fertilised and developing inside you into a wonderful healthy baby

Last year one of my clients conceived at age 45. She was refused IVF due to the fact that her FSH levels were too high; and there were other health issues whereby they said she would never conceive naturally. She never gave up believing in herself and the fact that she would be a mum one day. She is today the mum of a very health normal baby girl.

www.tina-taylor.com

Stop Worrying or You'll Make Yourself Ill

Whilst I’ve been posting links regarding PNI (Psychoneuroimmunology) lots of people have been asking about it, mainly asking me what is, whilst some are wondering where it came from.

The name was thought up by Dr. Robert Ader, an experimental psychologist who conducted some of the original experiments in the field he named himself, psychoneuroimmunology.

His research begun in the 1970s and became the foundation for studies that have since mapped out the communications network among immune cells, hormones and neurotransmitters. He introduced a field of study that proved the science behind a notion that was once considered balmy:

 that meditation helps reduce arterial plaque;
 social bonds improve cancer survival;
 people under stress catch more colds; and
 that placebos work not only on the human mind but also human cells.

At the core of Dr. Ader’s research was an insight that was already obvious to any grandmother who had ever said, “Stop worrying or you’ll make yourself ill.” He managed to demonstrate scientifically that stress worsens illness and can trigger it; and that reducing stress is essential to good health.

That idea, now widely accepted among the medical profession, contradicted the previous principle of biochemistry, which said that the immune system was autonomous. In fact in 1985, the idea of a connection between the brain and the immune system was dismissed in an editorial in The New England Journal of Medicine as “folklore.”

And today there is not a physician in the country who does not accept the science Bob Ader set in motion, PNI - the study of how the nervous system affects the endocrine system which in turn affects the body.

PNI Two Day Course at Kingston upon Thames, London
www.aventesi.com for details

Fears and Anxieties

Fear is part of our survival instinct, it sets our body and mind in motion in preparation for a perceived threat. Its hard wired into the sub conscious and is one of our oldest emotions; sometimes generated without any conscious awareness. We feel uneasy, yet don't know why. It makes us jump when something moves on the ground or touches us, makes us blink when something is coming towards our eyes. We respond due to sensory input driving us into action.

Fear makes you focus. There’s a moment of awareness, with our unconscious telling us something isn't right, and as we sense "something" we freeze. This freezing may stop predators from seeing us it also gives us a chance to evaluate the situation and if it is OK we continue - returning to what we were doing.

When in danger, the full flight mode signal is sent from the mind to the body; muscles become stronger and the heart beats faster, pupils dilate so we can see better as we think about our escape.

Then there is the moment of panic, when some people are overwhelmed with feelings with no direction or purpose, scared without knowing what to do or where to go. Heart beating faster, muscles stronger but unable to use our mind to plan a course of action.

Fear is all about chemicals, epinephrine and norepinephrine; epinephrine (adrenaline) is secreted by the adrenal glands. These chemicals are released in moments of fear to prepare us for the fight or flight response; and changes occur to improve chances of survival. As well as increased strength an increase in oxygen increases sensory acuity whilst non-survival process like digestion are put on hold.

Fears and phobias are extreme anxieties. As we go through life we learn a great many things by experience, things we are not even aware of. An unconscious learning, fear is one of these experiences and is a demonstration of how quickly we learn an automatic response.

From one experience the mind can generalise and attach fear. Then the flight or fight response kicks in. Your imagination is far more powerful than conscious will and the area of the brain that you use to imagine something is the same area that is used when experiencing things. Which is why your nervous system can’t tell the difference between a real or vividly imagined experience.

For an event to be coded as traumatic its said that four conditions need to be met. First it needs to be a emotional event; second, have a meaning for the individual; third, the chemicals need to be in place and fourth the experience is perceived as inescapable. If these are present it is possible that the brain will categorise the event as traumatic.

And yet there could be 2 people at the same event and one will be traumatised whilst the other will not. How can this happen?

Life is full of traumatic moments, in order for an event to be traumatising it must produce an emotional response. Meaning is attached to the event, and whereby one person may code something as traumatic another may not. A good example of this is those who are afraid of riding on roller coasters, they produce the four conditions in their mind and they know its scary and dangerous; whereas someone who loves roller coasters will have all the same conditions in place yet they love the thrill of the ride.

When afraid we panic, a panic attack is a sudden attack of terror usually accompanied by a pounding heart, feeling week, faint or dizzy. During these attacks people may also feel flushed or cold possibly becoming short of breath; some people experience chest pain and feel they are going to die.

People have looked for ways in which to help people overcome their fears and phobias for many many years. We have tried many different approaches from flooding (a rather extreme way of feeling the fear and doing it any way), desensitisation, Hypnosis, NLP, CBT, EMDR, TFT (or EFT a version of TFT) to name but a few.

The majority of my clients need help overcoming fears and anxieties, from the OCD who has numerous rituals to help them cope with their fears, to the bulimic who uses food to cope with theirs, to the business man who needs help making a presentation and the people who just want to be able to get on a plane. Fear seems to be present in a lot of peoples lives.

Steve Crabb and I have for many years successfully helped people overcome fears, phobias and anxieties. On February 25 & 26 at Kingston University we will be sharing our strategies with you.

Check out www.aventesi.com or call Sarah on 02085403366 for more details or to book your place.

Tis the Season

When our thoughts turn to babies, well one particular baby who was born over 2000 years ago in a stable without any medical aid or assistance. It was hearing about things like this that originally had me thinking about the process of childbirth. When I was expecting my own child I refused to believe that something that we were designed to do should be as painful as some would like me to believe. What made human women different from the other female inhabitants of this world.

Most of the research for my book was completed nearly 30 years ago as I began to look at the history of childbirth. This journey took me way back in history to a time before the birth of Jesus where Greek Scholars such as Aristotle wrote about the miracle of birth and talked about using the power of the mind. Interestingly these scholars made no mention of pain. Both the Ancient Greeks and the Romans wrote about relaxed births.

Studies of documents written by the Greek scholars Hippocrates and Aristotle give no indication of any discomfort in childbirth, unless there was a problem. At that time if women needed assistance whilst in labour they were brought into a relaxed state, sometimes using herbs and potions, so that the problem could be dealt with. These ancient scholars believed that whilst women were giving birth their feelings should be accommodated and that mum needed people around to attend to her. Hippocrates was the first person to run childbirth classes for midwives. Both Hippocrates and Aristotle wrote that nature is the best physician and that it (nature) should be allowed to function without any interference. Aristotle wrote of a mind body connection during childbirth and emphasised the importance of a deep relaxed state.

Another Grecian scholar, Soranus, began putting the writings of Hippocrates and Aristotle into book form. His writing earned him the reputation of being the greatest obstetrical authority of the time. He stressed the importance of listening to the needs of the mother and suggested using the power of the mind to achieve the relaxed state needed for an easy birth.

So following in these auspicious footsteps my childbirth classes were born, teaching women what I believe is the way that we were intended to have our children. Naturally, listening to our bodies just as our ancestors did and probably just what a women called Mary did oh so long ago.

Seasons Greetings to one and all

www.tina-taylor.com

Tina’s book Painless Childbirth is available on Kindle and from Amazon

Remember to inoculate ……

Just seen client I worked with about a month ago. A young man of 22 who graduated last year with a first and begun to feel anxious about his future. So much so that he stopped going out and socializing, stopped seeing his friends, in fact all he wanted to do was to stay with his parents as that was the only place he felt safe. This is a tall (6 foot 2), good looking young man who felt that the world was a too scarey place.

After a couple of meetings he was able to go out, and begun to look for work; we worked on his CV and prepared for interviews and he was excited about the future.

Then at a visit with his doctor (a family friend) he talked about his meetings with me and how I had helped him – his doctor talked him into seeing a counselor “just to be sure” everything was OK now. Interestingly, his dad who originally spoke to me didn’t want him to see a counselor as he said he felt I would be able to help him much quicker and easier.

Because of my conversation with dad I decided not to inoculate about what others may say …….

And after just one session with the counselor he told me that he felt much worse than he ever did. Now I must say that I do know some counselors who are very good at their work, but I’m not sure this one is.

So today we met again, inoculations firmly in place and he’s back on track looking forward to taking a holiday with some old friends he’s reconnected with.

www.tina-taylor.com

Hypnosis and Pain Control

Over the centuries hypnosis has been viewed as a magical cure-all, and has a history of acceptance and rejection by the medical profession for over 200 years. Over the years many people have utilized hypnosis with great success and it has been reviewed many times over.

Friederich Anton Mesmer in the 18th Century, believed Mesmerism would hinder the development of disease and had some success in curing various illnesses as well as helping people with pain control. Then in 1834 and English surgeon John Elliotson reported on numerous operations performed painlessly using mesmerism.

In England around 1846, another surgeon James Braid revisited the phenomenon of Mesmerism and renamed it hypnosis, after the Greek god of sleep, Hypnos. He was the first person to attribute the phenomenon to psychological rather than physical variables and his findings brought a renewed interest in the subject. He had evidence on 345 major operations performed with hypnosis as the sole anesthetic.

In 1990, Evans investigated the possible ways in which hypnosis effectiveness varies according to the type of pain. He concluded that the style of hypnosis was important. For acute pain, he suggested hypnotic suggestions focusing on anxiety-reduction and emphasis on minimizing the importance of the pain; and for chronic pain, he suggested directly confronting the pain under hypnosis, dealing with both the pain's physical and psychological effects on the patient (Evans, 1990).

The American Psychology Associations examine of hypnosis for pain control came to the conclusion that hypnosis had a similar effect as the placebo effect; that the belief that the hypnotic suggestions can reduce pain had the effect of reducing pain.

The management of pain using hypnosis is in a strange position. Although hypnosis has been shown to be effective in many cases, it still tends to be overlooked. Hypnosis is an easy-to-administer procedure with no side effects, yet most doctors ignore its effectiveness in lieu of more traditional methods. Probably because no one really knows how it works, yet it still has merit.

Regardless of the various conclusions made over time, hypnosis has been shown to be a useful tool for pain management in many situations with some articles suggesting that hypnosis is one of the great misunderstood treatments of our time and hypnosis has been shown to be a relatively effective, safe, and inexpensive way in which patients can deal with their pain.

www.tina-taylor.com

Painless Childbirth

Whenever I mention the possibility of painless childbirth and woman’s ability to achieve this herself without the use of drugs; so many people respond with comments along the lines of “but that’s what an epidural is for”.

I first began to look at childbirth in the 1980’s when I was pregnant with my daughter. I believed as I was only pregnant and this was a perfectly natural state to be in that it would be a relatively easy process. Then I read all these books telling me about what to expect and the various procedures that were at that time considered necessary during labour. I’m sure my doctor thought I was “difficult”; I remember going into hospital with a whole list of things that I had decided wouldn’t (and didn’t) happen. Happily today most of these are a thing of the past.

Whilst studying NLP and Hypnosis one of the things that intrigued me was the way that the mind creates our thoughts, beliefs and responses to situations, and I was drawn to the minds ability to control various sensations or our perception of sensations specifically the sensation labeled pain. How is it that we have different “pain thresholds”; and that one persons pain can be another’s pleasure. This question brought my attention back to childbirth and the fact that there are women in the world today that give birth within a few hours and then return to work with their babies swaddled to them. What is it that makes birth easy for some women and difficult for others?

During my research I found Dr Grantly Dick Read also had this question; he was a doctor at Whitechapel Hospital, East London, in the early 1900’s. One evening when he was called out to assist a woman in labour, he offered her chloroform, the only chemical pain control available at the time, which she refused. Afterwards when he congratulated her on her bravery she replied “it didn’t hurt. It wasn’t meant to was it Doctor?”

This comment spurred him onto investigate pain in childbirth; he found that this women wasn’t an isolated incident and that many women achieved what appeared to be a pain free birth experience. He begun to wonder about the differences between those who said they was in agony and those who had an easy time. Interestingly he said that women who had an easy time in childbirth “appeared to be in a trance like state”.

Intrigued by his findings, I went along to a few new baby coffee mornings with the National Childbirth Trust (NCT. During my research I found that Dr Grantly Dick Read inspired the creation of the NCT in its early days it was called the Natural Childbirth Association). New mums enjoy talking about their babies births and whenever I heard a woman telling a story of how easy it was I became very interested; and asked some questions. I wanted to find out what they did, what was their strategy in achieving an easy birth. And I found out that they all had similar stories to tell; they said things like “this sounds really strange but ……….there was a picture on the wall of my room and as the contractions got stronger I seemed to climb in the picture; or I remembered a place from my childhood/past and it was as if I was back there until it was time for baby to be born and suddenly I was back……….

Their descriptions reminded me of a kind of hypnosis known as deep trance phenomena and I begun to wonder if this was what we were supposed to do whilst in labour.

In 2001 a friend asked me to help her achieve natural childbirth she had a teenage daughter and was disappointed that her first birth hadn’t been a natural one. I met with her, her partner and her daughter, and we began to design what later became the blue print for my childbirth classes. I was honored to be asked to be present at the birth also, and so got to review the system first hand so to speak. The midwifery staff were all excited when I arrived at the hospital with my friend. You’re the hypnotist they said, we’re looking forward to seeing what you can do.

Over the years, these classes have evolved and now contain a combination of hypnosis, NLP and DHE™ all designed to teach the mum to be how they can enter a deeply relaxed state during childbirth to create their own phenomena. Many of my students have asked me during our classes whether they will actually be able to access that state during labour and they have contacted me afterwards to say how wonderful the whole process was for them and how they were able to relax and follow my instructions “just as I said they would”.

From the classes that I have taught over the years, I know that women can have a natural birth experience without fear, worry or discomfort. There is one side effects that seem to result from using hypnosis and NLP during pregnancy as you prepare for labour - the babies are very happy, contented and relaxed.

Painless Childbirth available from www.tina-taylor.com